First, you have to be carefully taught

The Ugly American resides in your neighborhood, perhaps even closer. This false patriot continues the time-honored, immoral tradition of spreading the seeds of hate and intolerance, polluting our land, fertilizing forests of prejudice with hate-filled accusations. The U.S. may be more imperiled internally than externally, as those with self-serving agendas pollute our nation with their pernicious prejudice.

The primal urge to demonize others to boost personal esteem is an original sin, nurtured through the centuries by self-loathers who Jesus sought to minister. Christ’s message of enlightenment emphasized the simple message — love one another. Every denial of another’s worth takes the Lord’s name in vain. Each instance opposing someone’s civil rights surely decays the human soul.

Humans aren’t born intolerant. Hate is taught through word and deed, not passed through the genes, yet the much ballyhooed “Christian” message too often sits beside the “prejudice dogma” in family cars heading to church on Sunday. Future bigots are deliberately and unrelentingly taught to abhor and detest all those not sharing their sameness. Racial and ethnic slurs, each judgmental smear, every overt approval of injustice toward “others”, and the complex mechanism of hypocrisy are all elemental components of the curriculum.

For a majority to reject equal rights for ‘those others’ is a heinous sin committed by millions of self-righteous hypocrites, boasting their piety. I don’t need a celestial visit to know Christ abhors being a tool of hatred and intolerance, preached from countless pulpits to multitudes of way-seekers. Yet intolerant congregations exist.

The Ugly American exposes a malicious core by denying Barack Obama’s birthplace validity, while the code word ‘foreign’ finds its way into campaign speeches, enhancing the ‘not like us’ disrespect. Islamophobic McCarthyism blossoms within purists already alarmed at the proliferation of non-whites in their Anglo-Saxon America, denying the reality of bronze semites — Moses and Jesus — so piously cited as principles of guidance. What must seem an explosion of sexual diversity completely repulses the righteous, spurring conservatives to oppose any governmental legitimacy for same sex relationships, grouping LGBT with that half of the population battling for personal health decision rights, equal pay for equal work, and violence against (all) women enforcement.

The Right seeks to limit liberties and protection for some — smaller government? — while insisting upon pronounced governmental invasion into individual arenas, continually legislating to dominate, then probe the female reproductive system.

Why is it big government waste to feed America’s hungry, but small government efficiency to bloat corporate coffers? The Right, in word and deed, consistently denies the majority while lifting up the favored few, all the while declaring America, “exceptional”.

Each time they deny equality to fellow citizens, they prove their America means “except you, and you, and you”, rather than our promised democratic equality which pledged to accept all.

Hate is evil — evil is ugly — discrimination is the instrument. Oscar Wilde’s “The Portrait of Dorian Gray” is the cautionary tale of a conceited man who offers his soul to ensure his comely portrait would age rather than he. Freed from physical retribution for sinful acts and thoughts, he falls easily into a life of debauchery and cruelty. His portrait serves as a reminder of the effect each act of evil has upon his soul, each sin is displayed as disfigurement or evidence of aging. Upon his death, the disfigured image on canvas becomes the handsome original and the totality of Dorian’s hideous soul is revealed on his corpse.

If we could see the small sinister souls of hate-filled intolerants, we might shun their groups — eschew their venomous texts and ban their books. We might eject bullies from our society — shutter their ‘safe house of bigotry’ — oust them from our government. We might even succeed in that higher purpose of “love one another” and become truly exceptional.

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